Ciò è notizie? Quel gli italiani parlano italiano? Che altro parlerebbero, . . .? *

Greco, ebreo, Russo, inglese, tedesco, Irlandese, Spagnolo, cinese, giapponese, arabo, svedese, il Danese, fiammingo, o (orrore degli orrori) francese? * This is news? That the Italians speak Italian? What else would they speak, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, English, German, Irish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Swedish, Danish, Flemish, or (horror of horrors) French?

According to a report from Reuters, Italia has finally made Italiano the official language of Italia. The Italiano Parliament just amended their constitution to read "The Italian language is the official language of the Republic". Amazingly enough 75 members of Parliament opposed it. Or maybe not. The facts of life about Italia is that it is even less a united country in some ways than the USA is.

Italia has only been united as a country for a little more than 140 years. & the region that the formers kings of Itakia are from (Savoy) is now a part of France. When it was united they chose the Tuscan dialect as the official language of the country. That dialect was the language Dante wrote in. Each of the 20 regions of Italia has its own dialect. Some of them are totally unintelligible to people from another region. In Northern Italia some areas even speak German. Technically, many Italians are bi-lingual even if they only speak Italian & their regional dialect.

Also, there is a huge gap between Northern & Southern Italia. Those from the North view the South as peasants (contadini). & Sicilia is totally seperate in a lot of ways. Regional identity has always been more important than nationality to the average Italiano. Back in the 60s Pat Cooper (Pasquali Caputo) used this fact as a part of his comedy routine. This regional identity also pops up in Lou Monte's song Pepino, the Italian Mouse. Pepino says to Lou: "Si, Siciliano?" He replies: "I'm Calabrese, you nut!"

So, maybe in a way, it is news.

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Meanwhile, Moonbattery has a post about the negative reaction by some members of Parliament (Italian Becomes National Language of Italy: Moonbats Outraged). Yes, some of the reaction is that of moonbats. But a lot of it isn't. A lot of it comes from the reasons I pointed out above. Italia isn't as united a country as it often looks from the outside.

Yes, some of the people involved are the usual suspects. Franco Russo of the main Communist party is definitely 1 of those pazzo (crazy) leftists. (I can't help but think that if that dear Mrs. Russo from my hometown, if she were still alive, would concider him una disgrazia.) On the other hand Federico Bricolo from the Northern League party is 1 of those I talked about for whom region comes 1st. & he considers the Venezio dialect as his 1st language. "It's the language spoken in my family, in schools, at work. I am Venetian, Mr President, my language is that of Venice," Bricolo said in his dialect. (He may still be a moonbat for other reasons but not in this case.)

So, those like Sr. Bricoli opposed it for the right reasons. While Sr Russo is definitely doing it for the wrong reasons. Anyhow, as I said, maybe it isn't so surprizing 75 people opposed it. What may be surprizing to those of my Nonno's generation is how far most Italiani have come that they see themselves nationally more than regionally.

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